Using granular data on home builder housing developments from the 2006-09 housing crisis, I show that builders spread house price shocks across geographically distinct projects via their internal capital markets. Builders who experience losses in one area subsequently sell homes in unaffected...

We study the transmission of financial shocks across borders through international bank connections. Using data on cross-border interbank loans among 6,000 banks during 1997-2012, we estimate the effect of asset-side exposures to banks in countries experiencing systemic banking crises on...

I study the long-run effects of credit market disruptions on real firm outcomes and how these effects depend on nominal wage rigidity at the firm level. Exploiting variation in firms' refinancing needs during the global financial crisis, I trace out firms' investment and growth trajectories in...

What are the implications of information technology (IT) in banking for financial stability? Data on US banks' IT equipment and the background of their executives reveals that higher pre-crisis IT adoption led to fewer non-performing loans and more lending during the global financial crisis....

The benefits of cross-border financial activity are wide-ranging, from greater competition and more efficient markets to broader and more stable access to capital. During normal economic times, the official sector and private sector share an incentive to foster such cross-border financial...

This paper studies optimal debt maturity in an economy with repayment enforcement frictions and investors disagree about repayment probabilities. The optimal debt maturity choice is a mix of long- and short-term debt securities. Spreading risky debt claims on cash flows over time allows debt to...

Do firms use credit line drawdowns to finance investment? Using a unique dataset of 467 COMPUSTAT firms with credit lines, we study the purpose of drawdowns during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Our data show that credit line drawdowns had already increased in 2007, precisely when disruptions...

What determined the corporate use of credit lines in the recent financial crisis? To address this question we hand-collect data on credit lines and interest rate hedging for a random sample of 600 COMPUSTAT firms. We document that drawdowns of credit lines had already increased in 2007, earlier...

We examine the effects of government policy uncertainty on cross-border capital flows. FDI flows from US companies to foreign affiliates drop significantly during the period just before an election. The election effect for FDI is larger than election cycles in domestic investment. The electoral...

We develop a dynamic model for digital service firms, which invest in monetization to generate revenues from services provided to customers for free. Our model captures and explains why such firms often build a large customer base and become highly valued while continuing to suffer...